We decided to make a quick change to plans for our mini vacation. We were going to go to the Norman Rockwell Museum today but after walking the galleries at the Eric Carle Museum yesterday we knew that the kids wanted something more hands on. I was searching for something special to do and discovered the Berkshire Museum.

Another museum you say? Didn’t I just mention that the kids weren’t so into museums?

Well, the thing is, there is an aquarium in the basement of this museum and that was enough for me to know. The rest of it was such a pleasant surprise that I knew we made the right choice for our day.

The Berkshire Museum is fantastic for kids. You walk in and immediately there is a dinosaur dig. Kids and parents don goggles and then use kitty litter scoops to dig through pebbles to uncover dinosaur bones. Eva and Andrew loved this room. Such a fun exhibit because it was so hands on and engaging to the kids plus some great information all around the room. I knew we were in for a real treat here.

Leaving the dinosaur area we moved into an exhibit all about animals, birds and insects all from the area. Andrew went nuts looking at all of the insects. He kept shouting “Bee, Bee, Bee!” and running side to side. He also tried to get really close to the bugs and knocked his noggin on the glass. It was both sad and funny at the same time.

Also in the room was a tank with a crayfish where you could test the PH in the water. There was also an exhibit about scat and Andrew spent so much time at that exhibit. He loved playing with the little magnifying glasses. Mostly he wanted to just take them out of the container and put them back in again.

The next room we moved into was the geology room and there were all kinds of rocks including some radioactive ones. You could check the radioactivity on a Geiger counter. Some rocks glow in ultraviolet light and there was a quick way to do that, too. Andrew obsessed over pushing the UV light over and over.

The next set of exhibits were all on innovation. There were hands on areas where kids could draw, play games and even use their movement to generate some moving digital art. Eva and I had fun dancing all around in that room.

Andrew started to melt down so we ended up getting down to the aquarium and checking it out for a short while and then going for lunch. the aquarium is small but filled with some great exhibits. There was this incredible chameleon that I took one of my favorite photos of, ever.

There were snakes, turtles, fish and a great tank of poison dart frogs. They even had a tidal pool tank. It mostly had snails in it but the kids loved playing in it.

One of the nicest things about the museum was that there weren’t a lot of people there and we could take our time with every exhibit. The kids enjoyed the whole visit and it is a place I would certainly recommend to families who are visiting this area.

We went try roading on our way home from the museum. We were looking for a BBQ place but came upon a little family restaurant for lunch. It was a nice little place and we had a good solid meal there. We opted for a larger lunch and a smaller dinner.

We were looking for a little roadside farm to get some cheese and meat for a little dinner. We stopped at Ioka Farms but they did not have what we were looking for. This place looked like a place where kids could play and learn about a farm. We were heading back to the hotel so we decided not to stay there to. Eva did pose for a few fun photos.

We went back to the hotel and Eva and I took a swim in the outdoor heated pool. She had a fun time. there were a couple of little kids playing there as well and Eva made friends. She is such an outgoing little kid. Heart on her sleeve sort of kid. As a person who is rather guarded with people this can often make me uncomfortable but she just loves meeting people. The kids were nice enough to her so that was good.

Back at the hotel we visited the country store and this was exactly the place we were looking for to get a light meal. The kids had leftovers from their lunch so Allison and I picked up wine, and mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto, homemade pita chips, chocolate with chipotle and a Raspberry Lemonade Iced Tea for me. We still had almonds and added that to our pick on plate as well.

It was a wonderful day with the family. Andrew was tough to get down but we now have Amazon Prime and so we could get episodes of Daniel Tiger and Super Why on the iPads. The kids watched a couple of episodes together and loved it.